Jaganathan Chelliah, Director, Marketing, Western Digital India

“‘Customer First’ is the key mantra we are driving within our organisation as an embark on a mission to create an environment for data to thrive for enterprise and retail consumers. We are transforming into a digital led marketing company and we are profoundly changing the way consumers research and buy products. Taken together, forces like third parties such as bloggers & the creators of user-generated media and marketers are making companies transform not just the marketing function but also the entire organisation.

To succeed in this new environment, companies must do two things. First, they need to clarify the broadened role of marketing in general and the CMO in particular. The accelerating pace of change is creating a wide range of potential new priorities for chief marketers. Second, as the roles of marketing and the chief marketer expand, it will become critical for CEOs to ensure that they have the right person as CMO, to understand fully how customers are changing, and to become more involved in developing new marketing capabilities across the company.”